Composting with Local Cafe Coffee Grounds

If you have a composting pile or bin for your home garden, then you should head down to your local cafe and pick up these compost boosters. Coffee shops throw away tons of used coffee grounds each year, grounds which are better suited for your garden. Many cafes offer these grounds to their customers if you just ask. Some Starbucks cafes even have them bagged and waiting for you in their Grounds for your Garden bin.

Coffee grounds are excellent for home garden composting, providing your plants with a rich source of nitrogen. You can even add them to rose beds, azalea beds, or any acid loving plants, just spread a thin layer over the surface of the bed. Typical acid loving plants thrive in areas where summer rains are common. Unfortunately, due to salt levels, you should not add coffee ground into your container plants.

It is typical to combine compost with certain ratios to maintain maximum composted material in minimum time. The standard compost recipe is to put a little bit more browns (dead and dry items) than greens (fresh and wet items). This will help achieve the 30:1 Carbon to Nitrogen ratio.

When mixing in coffee grounds to your compost pile, the grounds act as a green material due to their nitrogen rich content. The grounds will generate heat for you pile, speeding up the composting process. Worms also find coffee grounds irresistible, so adding them to a compost pile or worm pile will keep them happy.